13 December 2011

Before reading Jeremy Narby's book, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge--I watched Lars Von Trier's latest film, Melancholy. I dreamt that same night, after being exposed to the reoccurring, almost base image I found in Melancholy. The front lawn.

The characters are set in a manor, and the lovely house has a beautifully simple lawn in which, with a Magritte sense of surrealism, we see a sky with both a moon and a smaller earth-like planet--both casting two shadows onto earth. Much of the character's observations of the planet, Melancholia, occur under this perspective. We, the viewers, are placed with our backs to the front of the house, facing out into the sky, cup-framed by the u-shape green of the lawn and trees. Its this exact view that I saw in my dream that night. In the dream, I can't recall if it was day or night, it probably doesn't matter. In the middle of the lawn, however, I see a ladder. Erect, without any support, the ladder reaches upward. I don't climb it, nor does anyone else. There isn't anyone to climb it, at least I don't remember anyone being present. The ladder is perfectly centered and just stands there, being. This is the only part I remember from the dream.

The following day, a Friday, at work I briefly join a conversation about Time and after my shift has ended I end up in Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers. I am looking for anything on Time and practically have an anxiety attack upon picking up Einstein's work on relativity. The Cosmic Serpent caught my eye. If nothing else, the cover was a whole lot better than some of the other books. Somewhere along my debate on whether or not to purchase the copy, I opened up some pages and immediately found the word LADDERS, actually it was THE LADDERS! (all caps). I had watched a set of youtube videos by Freedom of the Soul, entitled DNA & the Serpent's Lie. These should've been the first to come forward along the forefront of my memory but all that came was the ladder from my dream. This, along with my interest in genes started by Richard Dawkins, lead me to read Narby's work.

I'm not here to review The Cosmic Serpent, which I did in fact enjoy. I'm not here to review Melancholia, which you've by now guessed and which I also did enjoy. I am not going to rant on about coincidences either but the one thing I got from Narby's work, is the idea about flexibility. Be flexible, keep an open mind--don't be afraid to connect things around you. In an Alan Watts jovially british voice, I hear someone say "play with the universe because it certainly wants to play with you."

Where does the memory of me go? From second to following second, how do you place and then later, misplace it? How thin a thing these translucid accumulations of impression--so fleeting like a brief scent or a half-remembered dream. That you could not recall my name as you hours earlier pronounced it syllable by syllable, attached to the equivalent of a smile in your produced inner-voice. The features of my face become collected ghosts at the haunted house, hollowed by your howling thoughts. You follow my shadow and forget its generator, its a marionette with enough illusions as you've got imagination. You're distracted your space with forms on walls and sidewalks, over ceilings and wherever else light pushes my obscure doppelganger. Why is it so difficult to hold fast to that which I am, within you, momentarily?

What traces of me do you spare, if any? You can't see that I am still there--that, neither enough time has passed, nor enough experience to change me so suddenly. Drastically, do you dispel me--Brash and abrupt, you run and steady yourself balanced at perspectives so darkly transfigured, you'd not recognize your own face through that fog. I can't fight the thought of me--inside your head, its battery is governed by the venom you request it to produce. I am lost in your mind and can make no difference of height, distance, and width--I am without dimension there.

And you won't speak it. Its all nothing to you. Its gathered in ambience. You're weak against it and when you try, its all but fracturing to your nature. You won't tell me the specifics of what brings you there--you won't share with me anything but the parthenogenetic disdain and contempt hosted by the imaginary shades of conviction you so worship, thus concluding it a sin, to break that reverence. And if spoken, then I haven't heard it and I apologize for my deaf consciousness. I am no further free of blemish than you are. I listen to the words that probe you and instantly, supplant myself at their reception and mark the apprehension and defense necessary to endure such irritating sounds. I sound ridiculous against your silence.

As the universe expands, all matter within it, follows suit; and in expanding, all things grow further and further apart. Divergence leads to variety, and as the more variable we become, the more we break away. A separate species, later a separate genus, family, order, class, kingdom, etc. And at some point, like an insect to a plant, we'll stand similar. But remind yourself of me, of my not so deceased impression, take from it enough to rightfully evaluate who I am in the present and chance me the love you felt and somewhere still feel--We can evolve as one.

It makes me angry, but you're never around to see it--It brings me so down that I jump to the first chance to start fresh when you return with all your memory as you normally habit. I am as quick to forget you, as you are to forget me. So, I repeat, I am no further free of blemish. I forget about your ghost moods, and then in such a horrible pattern, shake into fragments when they return--One would think I had as much amnesia as you. This is why we must chase catharsis, if the attempt seems of interest. If we continually feel life within ourselves for one another, we must then continually remember who we are? If anything happens, it should happen in truth. Thus, if we're meant the future as our present, then we'll adapt, or perish in our failure.

04 December 2011

I wish her prosperity, I wish her dimension, in which she can see beyond depth--distance, height and width. I wish her smiles and the accumulations of joy. I wish her hands that never forget to reach, that never hesitate to let go when its time. I wish strength to her bones and extra connections to her thoughts. I wish her balance and the means to utilize the information the universe whispers at her ear. Forwardness, not necessarily judged by success but by flexibility. I wish her the play and the dance, the toy of dreams and the blurring of the future--the inviting presence of a never-ending Now, that wants to say hello, kiss her back in the morning and say to her "you exist and there is nothing else in the infinite universe who is you right this minute."

Before starting on what is probably the most important chapter in Darwin's On the Origin of Species, let me just take back some of the things I initially wrote about Charles Darwin as an author. It just took about a chapter and a half to get myself orientated and discover ground on which to stand and receive Darwin's language. Incipient species, genera, variability, all these ideas sort of jump out of the first chapter and somewhat overwhelmed me. But they have all been stretched and expanded on by Darwin, he illustrates good and coherent examples of his notions. And by the beginning and throughout the 4th chapter titled, Natural Selection--the hardest thing to do is lose interest. The closing summary where Darwin brings forth the cliche example of a tree to explain the branching of life was beautifully delivered and it almost seemed thrilling, as if I could feel his excitement through his words and punctuation.

The purpose of these notes were suppose to help me understand the text as I read it but now that I feel confident, I probably won't write a chapter by chapter entry for On the Origin of Species (OOS). This might be the last for a while unless something remarkable should pop up in the book.

In reading this work on evolution and the theoretical evolutionary mechanism known as Natural Selection, I feel like I'm just reading the details to what I already knew. I guess you can say if it were a movie, I read the plot synopsis on the back of the DVD and am now watching the film. I knew what I was in-store for but the actual details are worth the extended experience.

Time acts on earth, bringing about change to the physical planet and the living things that live there. If these living things evolve forward in time to meet these changes then it could be through an concept called Natural Selection. Natural selection says that all these individual living things are varieties of one another and in the way they vary, if any new difference is to their individual advantage then ever-changing nature selects that variation. It selects it because as nature changes, obviously those that remain relevant with the included changes can make the most out of life in nature or earth. And if the variation continues to benefit the individual, it might gradually form a variety of its species and then that species of its genus and so on and so on.

After reading Darwin's full explanation I closed the book and thought about change. Thought about versatility and how its always the ability to adapt to circumstances that allows things to move forward. Successful Life is flexible. Not Life as in human social status but Life as in biology, as in everything alive on earth. All flexible cells and DNA that altered this way and that depending on what they had to deal with. Some went extinct and took with them the dead-end ideas while others took advantage of their own variations that found a way to be supported by the simultaneous variations of their surroundings.

Its as if Nature, like the Judeo-Christian God, gives favor to one offering over the next, as in the story of Cain and Abel. Only that the extinct species doesn't murder its sibling species, unless one states extinction to be the murder of the shared common genes that went wasted into creating these non-adaptable fallen branches. But even in such a tactless thought, the common genes remain favorable through the surviving species--modified into collaboration with new genes that ultimately make the difference.

03 December 2011

I was listening to Genesis while Mini was getting dressed and packing things in the other room. I didn't stop her. She left quietly and without saying anything. I thought she would take more things but it seems its just her laptop and a bag or two of clothes. There's nothing one can do. I'm in her head just floating around like a helpless virus, walking from room to room, some chambers are random zones of anxiety and paranoia, they have their own realms and by walking in, the thought which is me, instantly is adopted and becomes part of that anxiety and paranoia that is after all just a theory not a fact. But fed back to the mainframe, its felt and so its real. And the real me, outside of her head becomes a testament of the thought of me--We become one and the same. And so for no other reason than that the thought of me is at the wrong place at the wrong time, the real me bothers her.

As much as I care, I'm not going to hold on or hold her back from whichever which way she chooses to go. With me, she may come and go as she pleases. While listening to Selling England by the Pound for the first time, I heard a few moments that I wanted to replay and hear it again because they were really good. But I didn't, I'm letting the album play out completely; so that I may experience it in its fullness and not attach myself to one specific point. I loved those points of Selling England by the Pound the same way that I love Mini but love isn't to be influenced by fear. I can't fear that I won't love Mini if she isn't with me or that I won't be who I know myself and love myself to be without her. If she doesn't feel the same, then maybe she should leave and discover for herself what can cause the removal of such a distracting fear.

Everything Mini makes me feel is a song in a full length masterpiece album that began when we met and will end when we play out the full extend of our social interaction or relationship. I don't want to stop the record and repeat any of the songs or song segments, I want them to pass through me and in doing so, a unified, uninterrupted experience will mark the evidence of quality, the reflection of all the emotions and stimulations that emerged from our album, can be measured as a whole. Rather than focusing on specific parts and attributing to them weight that can never fully match the album as a whole.

02 December 2011

Before going in on this nap, I'm going to take a few moments to write the following. During the overdue but understatedly refreshing shower I just experience I parked my mind on the idea of numbers. Numbers are amazing, the infinite alphabet of math and logic (if any difference between the two need be observed). Time, distance, weight, mass, velocity, proportion, volume, all these are measured in numbers, addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. The entire universe is information and most of this information can be translated into numbers.

Now, I'm no numerologist and I admit, while all these conjured reverences on numbers were not present in my shower it was only because it took just one to keep my brain in awe. Possibility. Infinite possibility. Just by adding, just by knowing that numbers have no end--you can be fully aware that logically there is such a thing as "no end" as "infinity". Have you ever heard two kids competing in terms of numbers, they'll say things like "Oh yeah? Well Superman can fly a million of a million miles away from earth" while the other counters, "yea but Green Lantern can fly a million millions of a million..." and so forth. The sentences will just get longer and longer until one of them tires, thus loses the argument. By simply adding the number one to the proposed number, they could more effectively, to their energy, exhibit the example of infinity.

By knowing that any number plus one is not only one number higher than the previous but also a simultaneously unique and never repeating unit of an un-ending string of generative theoretical fact, we can know or understand that there are examples in reality of infinity. The possibility of any number is endless; any and every combination of Number is possible. You could invent any number and it will turn out to be a number. I wrote theoretical fact and it sounds like an oxymoron but its true that addition by definition, grows endlessly but its only theory to say it never ends. There can exist, by a very irrational principle that none of us can imagine, for which numbers can end--that a last number does exist. For now, such a principle is unknown to the point where it seems unlikely to exist, so therefore, as the information reveals itself, numbers are infinite.

If numbers never end then great and small numbers are just a matter of relativity. One second is 1000 milliseconds, a microsecond fits 1000 times into one millisecond, so in one second we find simultaneously 1,000,000 microseconds. Thats a great and small number happening at the same time. If you're a human, seconds are perhaps the smallest units of time worth noting, anything smaller happens too fast, its irrelevant to us. Likewise, a millennium is far too large a collection of centuries, decades, years, hours, minutes, and seconds--it exceeds that average human lifespan, therefore it would be silly or irrational for us to project our individual selves into, and plan for a thousand years from now. But if our lifespan were longer, say millions of years, then perhaps seconds would be like pennies to a multi-billionaire. Imagine what this relativity of time means for Possibility. If the chances of a rock turning into a bird by being struck by lightning are 1 in 10 to the 100 billionth power then in an infinite numerical universe where measurements such as time are agents of relativity, those chances are as good as gold. Think about it, if any large number such as 10 to the billionth power can be multiplied infinitely then how large is that number really?

Under infinite terms, if anything has at least one chance of happening then it will happen. And since it will happen, then it has happened and is also happening right now all at the same time. Think of each number as a note standing in for anything that happens in the universe, say that numbers 6,789 - 134,254,439,879,961 stand in for the event in which a rock gets transformed into a bird by being struck by lightning. It seems like a big number in the way that 134,254,439,879,961 microseconds is a big number but at the perspective of one day, 24 hours, its just a few seconds. The event happened in those microseconds and in that day at the same time. If 24 hours can be made as relatively small as a nano-second then everything that happened in that one day, will appear to have happened all at once.

I forgot how this started or where it was meant to end, I guess this is my version of a rock turning to a bird by being struck by lightning.

01 December 2011

Struggle for Existence - In this, chapter 3, Darwin first uses Natural Selection in capital letters. Shit just got serious! This chapter stresses the checks and balances of nature and how a somewhat biospheric homeostasis exists for life on earth. Darwin gives examples of species and how they can be said to struggle against oppositions in nature that prevent them from pandemic monopoly. Under that same prevention, the natural "preventor" is then similarly prevented from over-success by another opposition in nature, creating a cycle of what seems like multiple participants in a governing body all ensuring no one department becomes too powerful and abuses the resources. Also outlining competition between different species, Darwin briefly notes, individuals within a species and confound to the same area, will be in competition with one another as they share similar needs to the same resources. This reminds me, shoots me fast forward to the world of Richard Dawkins and The Selfish Gene, where Dawkins touches on aggression and evolutionary stable strategies in the chapter titled, Aggression: stability and the selfish machine. He ends the second paragraph thus:

Natural selection favors genes that control their survival machines in such a way that they make the best use of their environment. This includes making the best use of other survival machines, both of the same and of different species.

Included in the struggle for existence are obvious instances in which a species or individuals of species are caused to compete and sometimes even battle for resources. Whether it be inter-special, in the case of Dawkins exampled lion and antelope "competing" for the meat of the antelope's body or between two lions fighting over territory. The chapter in The Selfish Gene introduces Evolutionary Stable Strategies (ESS). Not easily explained in so few words but in a nutshell, "a strategy which, if most members of the population adopt it, cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy." Using ESS models in regards to aggression between same species, we can see that natures eventually produces order in stabilize competition between these individuals. ESS also apply to inter-special competition just under different models--meaning what works between lion and lion will differ between lion and antelope. If all of these aggressive interactions between individuals, regardless of species, living relatively together in the same ecosystem, are regulated by ESS then it follows that natural selection favors individuals who do not deviate from models which ESS have ruled as dominant among species.

ON THE POSSIBLE EXPANSION OF INDEFINITE EMOTIONAL PARTICIPATIVE NETWORKS

I am amidst a social interaction with a member of the opposite sex. The interaction is somewhat exclusive in that it is unique among all my other social interactions with members of the opposite sex. The exclusivity is the product of a full year of communication, interpretation, and physical experience. Through this exclusivity, this member of the opposite sex and I have created an environment of both language and emotional participation. Episodes of events, as experienced by our shared perception, isolate us from others. Our constantly evolving interests, which dictate our activities, remain relevant to us and in relation to one another, we continually remain curious.

The emotional participation between this individual and I records or documents, in us both, a network of definitions and various maps of connections between these definitions that should in theory, perpetually expand. It is often enough the case that individual episodes of events, contain elements that reference these definitions or connections to definitions. In other words, memory creates new meanings for subjects seemingly unrelated to the social interaction between this individual and I. Nonetheless these meanings expand the emotional participation between the participants of exclusive social interactions.

Given that examples of similar social interactions between other individuals seem to be uniform and somewhat characterized by time, comfort, and stability; ours is no different except we substitute stability with consistency. Consistency is a form of stability, true. But in my understanding of consistency in regards to exclusive social interactions, stability is a state that may result due to consistency but consistency is not so much, under such terms, a product of stability. The current social interaction between this member of the opposite sex and I is not stable. Yet, even void of this stability found in other relationships, this individual and I, are consistently engaging one another through ever-changing, unstable channels of attention.

Our language and emotional participation is self-stimulating to the organism of exclusive social interaction. Empathic and at times even telepathic insight becomes present. Consistency appears to keep us relevant in relation to one another. We are theory in the experiment to which no result emerges to prove or disprove its practicality.

I am amidst an exclusive social interaction with a complimentary individual, which stimulates and identifies in me, a consistent curiosity and thus a significant emotional participation. I am exclusively available to define through multiple episodes of events, generative examples of intimate networks subjectively shared between this individual and I. Interlaced and infinitely receptive, there is no reason why these networks cannot expand indefinitely.

30 November 2011

Having completed the second chapter to On the Origin of Species (OOS), I have to admit, it is getting easier to understand. I've been jotting down what I feel to be key parts, along with paraphrasing certain ideas in order to follow with my own mind, what Darwin arrived upon. I've also noticed that my knowledge of basic biology is embarrassingly framed in cobwebs and matted by dust, stranded in the same position I originally left it during my high school freshman year.

In order to refresh my memory, I paid a quick visit to wikipedia's entry for Genus (or Genera). It was there that I found a very useful diagram for the hierarchy of biological organization. Darwin, speaks mostly on variation and variety in regards to species and genera in this chapter, aptly is it titled Variation Under Nature.

Of the ideas introduced in this chapter the very first that reached a hand out to me was that of range and dominance of a species and variety over a country or land.

...for, as varieties, in order to become in any degree permanent, necessarily have to struggle with the other inhabitants of the country, the species which are already dominant will be the most likely to yield offspring, which, though in some slight degree modified, still inherit those advantages that enabled their parents to become dominant over their compatriots.

The success of the species and genera can be said to lie in its varieties, according to Darwin, species of larger genera usually produce larger varieties within the species itself. Over an area as massive and varied as a country, a species found throughout this area will encounter variations in nature that select or favor certain complementary variations of the species. Darwin states that species are in essence, varieties of other species that have become distinct enough to permanently become separate from parent-species. And species are continually being manufactured through variations, so evolution is a phenomena without a goal, acting through variations on species, sometimes those variations are significant enough that they give birth to a whole new species.

With enough species contributing to an increase on genus, will a variety exist on genus and later family, order, class, etc.? Life had to begin as a species, or several varieties that eventually became a species.

And it may be said, that in larger genera, in which a number of varieties or incipient species greater than the average are now manufacturing, many of the species already manufactured still to a certain extent resemble varieties, for they differ from each other by a less than usual amount of difference.

We have, also, seen that it is the most flourishing or dominant species of the larger genera which on an average vary most; and varieties, as we shall hereafter see, tend to become converted into new and distinct species. The larger genera thus tend to become larger; and throughout nature the forms of life which are now dominant tend to become still more dominant by leaving many modified and dominant descendants. But by steps hereafter to be explained, the larger genera also tend to break up into smaller genera. And thus, the forms of life throughout the universe become divided into groups subordinate to groups.

The more I read Darwin's words and try to rephrase them, though understanding them better than before--I find that his wording was sufficient and pretty comprehensible when you realize that in these chapters, evolution is acting on variations. Variation on species of bacteria, plants, insect, and animal kingdoms alike. My confusion arose and still arises from the mistake of thinking in terms of only animals or creatures. And though, any species of life is just as good as any other for an example of evolution, I'm finding that once I exclude examples altogether, I'm better at understanding the specific principles at work in general life.

29 November 2011

The first thing I feel like saying is that Charles Darwin isn't a good writer. I had to reread the initial first paragraph at least three times before discerning some point of understanding from which to continue forth from. The impression I'm drawing from what I've read so far, is that

One: Darwin wrote this publication in a hurry, due to years of sitting on the idea and witnessing others releasing similar works on the same subject. There's almost a rushed pressure present from paragraph to paragraph.

Two: This study on evolution, based on naturalist observation, is mainly written for colleagues, peers, and future naturalists & biologists. On the Origin of Species is somewhat of an isolated work. From the time it was written to the writing style, I feel like I'm reading a book that wasn't meant for my eyes. And finally

Three: (During his time writing this book) Darwin's ideas had not yet been tested and thus not fully established, creating a curiosity in his words that confuse me as I find myself having trouble noting when something is being stated, implied, or proposed. Darwin sounds at times, like an excited storyteller who runs in all sorts of direction of detail; who loses his audience in his overzealousness.

I'm in the middle of the second chapter, so pay no mind to this note. In all likelihood, I'm just too dumb to read On the Origin of Species. I know the basic idea of evolution and understand that natural selection is the mechanism Darwin proposes which moves evolution in all of earth's living organisms. Rather than living things being created in their present form, perfectly sustaining that original design since the dawn of life, Darwin's evolution, hypothesizes that all life is more or less variations of species, all related, tapering backward from complex to the simplest designs as time and opportunity act upon them. I live in a world where that idea has existed from more than a hundred years before I was born; where scholars and scientists have learned, taught, extended, tested, and interpreted Darwin's essential contribution to modern science and thought for decades before I learned to read or write. By the time I learned about evolution it was from multiple sources whose works would surely not be possible if not for Darwin, he and his work were always constant references. Therefore, I've had, much like many others, an indirect exposure to the contents of On the Origin of Species. Still, its been long overdue, that I read for myself what Darwin put down and even if I have to reread this book twenty more times, researching every concept individually until it sticks plain-as-day on my mind--it'll be worth it.

03 October 2011

In Gnosticism, the material world and realm are evil and dominated by the demi-urge (lower god) Yahweh. Recently, this idea was reintroduced through the Matrix films. The Matrix program would be like the realm of Matter controlled by the evil, wrathful, and easily jealous deity who's plan is to enslave consciousness. Just like these films, beyond the realm of The Matter exists the true world and the true creator Sophia (Knowledge). It is only through Gnosis (Knowledge) that one may transcend and see the truth. I like Gnosticism for this idea, that knowledge is the only way to get to God--While most of the time we're told Faith is the key.

In the Gnostic interpretation of Genesis, the serpent is an agent of Sophia who helps Man temporarily free itself of Yahweh's dominion by disregarding the demi-urge's instructions to not take from the Tree of Good and Evil (consciousness). As a result of their disobedience, Yahweh casts Adam & Eve from Eden for fear they may take from the Tree of Life and truly become God-like (free).

The Serpent, who is exclusively always related to Lucifer in this story is like the Greek Prometheus, who brought fire to Man from the Heavens against the desires of the Gods who didn't wish to share this knowledge with humans. In fact, Lucifer means bringer of light -- furthering the connection between the two myths.

Sophia, the true creator, wouldn't care whether we were conscious or if we were immortal. She isn't threatened by any way if we were to become as she is. She doesn't care or protect, she simply only is--And everything is Sophia, she is the universe and everything within it. The only issue is that not everything within her is aware they are 1. Inside her and 2. One with her.

I don't believe there is a demi-urge. I am not Gnostic. But I do believe that our gnosis is limited purposely by the design of Nature for biological survival and that this limitation has left us disconnected with Sophia. And further I believe, it isn't necessary to see or know Sophia but if we do discover this need within ourselves then the only way to connect is by expansion of consciousness (gnosis). All religions based on Faith and Worship are a distraction of our senses. Sophia doesn't need love, doesn't need prayer, she is complete and there is nothing you can provide for her that she cannot accomplish herself. She is the true pure creator, destroyer, and preserver of the Universe. It is the Nature of Man that is personified by the Gods Man has created for himself. It is the Nature of Man to lie, steal, and be disloyal if it will improve his chances of self-preservation; it is the Nature of Man to seek love, respect, and power; the Nature of Man is wrathful and jealous and the Gods of Man follow in Man's Image, not visa versa.

If you feel you are in a prison then your desire becomes to be free. Likewise, if you are conscious and realize that the physical world you inhabit is a limitation of the Universe you could experience, then your desire becomes to free yourself of the physical and transcend to the true realm. Following Sophia will bring you nothing if you have fear of the unknown, if you don't really want the truth, if you are not curious. Established religion's biggest ally is fear, namely the fear of death and the corresponding fear of being alone. However, through expanded consciousness, one may experience that death and loneliness are not threatening at all. A peace has been made with the mind regarding these matters. And you're main inspiration for experience becomes to know yourself and in knowing yourself knowing Sophia, The Universe.

30 September 2011

If we were to lower our guard, our alertness--and become aware of what we're "not suppose" to be aware of, I don't necessarily believe that this is or has been set in place by a social infrastructure we live under. I would agree, that such a social infrastructure as the one we live under is inspired by the true cause of our selective sensory perception. I believe our social infrastructure takes advantage of our limited senses and goes as far as to outsmart itself to keep these available senses distracted, so that any awareness of an alternative perception is stifled--So even though, a fuller awareness may cause harm to the organization of society as we know it (or have come to know it)--I believe the true cause for this to be biological.

Our brain is a wonderful example of evolution and complexity--so much that technology has yet to synthesize a software to fully match or replace it. Its the control center for everything you know, will know, will experience in any lifetime. A severe blow to the head can paralyze you from the neck down, completely abandoned by the limbs and extremities that carry out orders from the gray wrinkled, matter that occupies the best parking space in your body. Brain is boss. Among all its purposes, and there are many, you can syphon a single, common goal--keep you alive! The brain is our one trick when we enter the pony pageant. The most important function of the brain, if not its only, is to keep you alive--to help you survive; to defend yourself if need be, in the name of self-preservation. Our sensory perception was designed with this in mind. We weren't overloaded. We have the general minimum. We don't see like a falcon, don't hear like a bat, don't sniff like a dog--its perfectly human to be limited. We've done well to survive as long as we have without any major improvement of our five senses, they've pretty much stayed the same since the dawn of man, haven't they?

That being said, there is no harm in wanting to expand our perception, even if it isn't necessary. This is probably why we will most likely face the same fate that awaited Icarus, deep down below. We should open our doors of perception, must in fact, if we are to fully see ourselves as we really are. One with the universe, that's the real you. The real me. Alan Watts is the universe teaching me what I already knew as Alan Watts. Terence McKenna is something the universe learned through Terence McKenna and connected multiple points within itself to other multiple points within itself--the network of cosmic existence. The only problem with all this is that the universe doesn't need to eat, doesn't need to breathe, or duck when someone yells "watch out!" At least not wholly, only segmentally through you and I. Being one with the universe distracts and even conflicts with being one with humanity. That's why society would prefer you not expand your consciousness. You're of no use at that point, you're cast out as "crazy", they give you a fancy name like "schizophrenic". One of the main definitions of either of these terms is "harmful to self and others." Is it physical harm or mental? Is it harmful for the self's position and status within the social infrastructure? if fully understood by the others, will they too break away from society? If the brain is our sharpest tool, then thoughts must be our fiercest weapon, our most dangerous employment of that medium.

If our consciousness is ever to expand in a collective and collaborative evolution, we will need a new society or even no society but a method of ensuring survival or biologically, we will fall. Our wax wings will melt. And yet, to have singularity--to fully connect all the information at all the points, with that sort of limitless perception will it even matter that we won't survive? Time and space would be experienced much differently through such a mind. Maybe thats what death is, when the Black Iron Prison is lifted and the third eye yawns wide-awake. Successful conscious life perhaps, can only happen by limiting that experience. And as we all know dead people can't buy McDonald's and make awful employees, so society sort of pushes towards limited conscious life.

16 July 2011

Nothing is ever a dry black and white. Similarly, reality isn't 2-dimensional. There are times when you are told "you shouldn't judge" or something akin to that nature; and it is precisely because you do not own a wide enough perspective, an overall omniscient view with which you could fairly place an idea, concept, or person in a definition box. No one really has the capacity for true judgment. Only opinions, which vary in ignorance.

With every life decision being the tip of the iceberg, its rather unfair to not consider the mass, submerged in cold, icy waters--the slow or otherwise intense build up of sequences which one by one lead to the resulting consequence. And since I suspect most of us act on what we believe to be the best choices we can make for ourselves, whether the criteria be comfort, conditioning, or culture, what ends up on that tapering iceberg's nexus is, on some level, fundamentally well-intentioned and self-interested. And why shouldn't it? We don't walk around deciding for strangers, nor do they decide for us. Sure some us may be more susceptible to suggestions than others but we still have the choice of whether or not we accept influence.

If every choice we make is driven by the outcome that best interests us individually, then letting another determine what's right for you may be done out of convenience. At times, things like faith and trust are just that, convenient--as they allow us to remove our hands from the reigns and be subject to the mercy of those who we deem qualified by experience, wisdom, relation, etc. Regardless of what they chose for you, whether helpful or harmful--you complacently went along because you believed, as they believed, that this was the right course to take among the vast, open sea of outcomes.

In such a situation the choice is to allow another to make the choice. In an undecided situation however, you are trying to choose a solution, unable to work out which is the best for you. But as you take too long to decide its as if the choice chooses itself. Things just happen, "it ain't all waiting on you." The universe moves, expands, contracts; within it, things change so often that from one second to the next you are technically, physically transported from one universe to another, as no two seconds are identical. In such instances its not a choice to not choose--its the despair of trying to decide and having the moment pass you by, voiding your chance to determine for yourself what's best for you.

Whatever the case, it isn't a light matter, to decide what's in your best interest. Life at times can seem like you're driving an oversized vehicle for which you can either look out the front window at the road or keep your foot on the gas pedal--either/or, but never both. Hindsight is 20/20 but anything before it is fog. Added to which, we don't want to hurt others; all the factors we include in our decisions can lecture the most expert spider a thing or two about webs. To not disappoint, to please, remain consistent, and act as truthfully as we can allow ourselves--the ideal would seem to be, a decision that can balance each affected facet's threshold. In other words, act in honesty without breaking anything. A beautiful thought but not a realistic one. You can't give everyone what they want. There's too many of them and its not worth it if what they want want directly contradicts what you feel is right for yourself. What's right for yourself? So much time and effort exerted on the practice of examining what's right and wrong that not enough emphasis is placed on the fact that a choice has finally been elected. A movement forward has come into light. Essentially, every choice is the right choice in terms of kinesis.

How could you judge the right choice of another? What or whom are you comparing the person or choice with? Your life? Your decisions? Your morality and ethics? You are unique, paradoxically, as is everyone else--you can't even be sure you and your closest friend see colors the same. Nevermind common interests and shared beliefs, you could never understand a person 100% unless that person happens to be you. How do you measure the mass of an iceberg by simply observing its tip? Especially when to take in the entire picture requires the omniscience of a supernatural deity. It only makes me wonder, would we even bother to judge at all if we possessed the true capacity for judgment. If such an understanding from omniscience were permitted, then the phrase "only God can judge me" would be corrected to "even God wouldn't judge me." If I believed in religion I would advise let us be like God--since I don't I'll just say don't judge others when you could be much better at judging yourself.

12 July 2011

To the angry little asian man in a royal blue windbreaker jacket, I hope you made it home well. You sat on the morning D train with the two seats to your left, awkwardly unoccupied, as the cart was significantly full. It was with a sudden energy, easily confused for violence, that you appeared a paper towel in hand and wiped down the seat next to you. You then indicated the seat's availability to some of the orbiting commuters who watched you. None sat. You weren't please by this.

Frustrated at having your kind gesture declined, you yelled out more words, foreign to myself and most others around; then you resumed your bacterial purging, this time stretching your attack upwards to include the college advertisement. Perhaps you were sending a message to any of the observing students, those who dreamt of an un-matriculated adulthood

After a few more tries, you caught your fish. Or did you? She was tall and possibly, not a student; her body seemed tense and blossomed by anxious nerves that caused an almost seemingly suspension of breath, as she descended onto the offered seat. No doubt she had seen your crusade at its various spasms, having been witness to it for a good two stations before deciding to sit. Why did she sit? Did you wonder at all? It almost made one imagine her having OCD, or being a mysophobe. A brave one, who thought the morning a perfect canvas for painting a challenge to her fear.

I almost burst into laugh fragments when you turned your head to face her, and delivered the longest awkward-laden glance I've ever seen. It was a look of disappointment, of letdown, and regret. As if at that moment, you had immediately come to the fork in your road. And between having seated neighbors and not, you had finally chosen Not, when she decided to park beside you. Maybe you sensed her discomfort and you felt it defeated your purpose. Maybe, she seemed too obvious about appeasing, what seemed to her to be, your otherwise ridiculous action. Maybe she smelled bad. Who knows? All I know is you reached out over her head and gave the college ad another once-over, maybe stressing to her that you had meant for a student to sit beside you. I again, almost died when she leaned forward to accommodate you. She sat at the edge of her seat.

You didn't mind to stare at the side of her face as she sat forward and began to text. Your eyes fell right into her screen and either read or scrutinized. All the while, I never noticed you had a friend with you, who sat perpendicular and was hidden, to me, by standing and most interfering passengers. It dried off some of the imagined hysteria I previously drowned upon you. You passed comments to this individual who didn't seem as serious as much as worried. At some point, you and the OCD wipe the seat and college ad together--I had to look away for fear lest I rupture.

When you exited the cart on Grand Street, I for some reason imagined you in a turtle costume, with a great big mahogany shell.

You left. Your friend remained, as did your neighbor. I left one stop away. I hope you found a fine day. I hope sincerity and honesty were displayed before you and the way a current runs through a battery--I hope it was as that, that you found use for these things.

28 June 2011

It pleases me intensely to see you so strong, so balanced and coordinated. For the moment we have traded roles. I, in my bandaged and partially immobile state can only admire the simple freedoms in you, that not too long ago were not only my right but also my identity. Dexterity is such a difference between us--as all our lives, it has been me that has lead, that has taken charge, that has lifted and maintained most of the burdens, selfishly but also arrogantly. I was always proud of you though and secretly wished for you to be as strong and reliable as me, if you recall moments when I was put aside and you were then placed on the spot--I watched as you held your own for as long as you could. And now, when I look over and see you with this new speed and confidence of motion so familiar and nostalgic to me, it is as if I were being shown footage of myself through a glass mirror. It shall be a while before I fully recover dearest twin, but you have made it that a new dexterity may exist now between us. A combined power and coordination that, when I return to top form, shall give us a wider range of control.

I am eager to escape this cage of a splint, to remove the gauze and bandage. Look at how dirty and dry I've become--at times swollen and darkened with dirt. I can neither lean forward nor back. Between my thumb, index and middle finger is shared the mobility and synergy meant for five fingers--is it any wonder, Brother, that they at times become plump with the strain of attempting to compensate for the two, completely immobilized. Look too, Brother, upon my arm and compare it to yours. The muscle is gone loose and an overall thinness now starves it. Clench a fist and see the difference for yourself. With your thumb and middle finger as a clamp you can observe that on my side, your fingers are closer to meeting than mine on yours, when they attempt to girth the forearm.

You are beautiful and unique even with a twin. Stretch and grip, shake and writhe, all with the beauty of activity. Even typing this I look over to you, resting over the keyboard and finding the letters with such an ease and shy grace, that I am humbled into myself with a numbness that folds me still and silent until I am, for the moment, unfelt---as if I have been cut off and am complete with in you twin.

29 May 2011

Do I care? I think others wonder that of me. I think the few individuals for whom I truly, genuinely do care for, even they aren't sure. How closed up am I? How introverted that they can't tell. I wonder if maybe just one among them understands--Can see pass my code and read me as I am. Because I do care, in my own way. However, I don't blame them if they can't see, it because I don't show it. Like all things that mean anything to me, I like to keep them, selfishly, inside to myself. But maybe my definition isn't valid. Perhaps there is no care if it is not visible. Its action v. thought, which one is real? Are we who we think we are or what we do, what and how others see us.

I don't have answers. I am only locked in my mind and from there, see things as I am accustomed to making sense of them. Though true, that with age and its accompanied experience the faculty for making sense of these things expands but for the most part questions answered lead to newer questions asked.

I wish the people I care for could know that but maybe since I don't want to change the way I express myself, then maybe its true, that I really don't care. Maybe thats the action confessing the truth about thought.

24 May 2011

Every artist has to be a pervert. The beauty of Art, or what makes Art special, is that its a perversion. A twist of the norm altered into exceptionality. Even a renaissance painting, even a still life of fruits on a table, focuses on a perversion of attention, for why take note of such a thing as a fruit bowl enough to paint it? Should we spare ideas for the preservation of comfort and conformity? Should there be a respect for the norm? I believe nothing is normal, there is only the strange we are used to and the strange we aren't used to. In a forum-lecture on cognition I once attended, it was said that consciousness is attention. We become accustomed to forms and ideas and they take on a comfortable familiarity in the background of the blur we call "everyday life". The perversion of these forms and ideas is what challenges us, what expands our understanding of the relationship between us and them. If the universe is wanting to become information as Terence McKenna has stated, if all points are in fact seeking to connect to one another, then perversion of what has been temporarily installed as "established" is universal stimulation to this penultimate goal.

21 May 2011

You woke up with a knife in your mouth, you woke up and it was heaviness to talk. Your wooden thoughts creak and crack, you carve them into unassuming shapes--the seeking of warmth and cold simultaneously; a blurring picture in the back of your eyes. The burning silence of life and its only condolences have forgotten how to speak, thus muted by memory.

there are times you belong in a bottle; there are times you belong in a cargo moonship. I dive blindly into ramparts of waves; the ones that static the surface, glisten the brow while episodal moods pale your smiles and dry out your depths. I seek coolness as my body overheats easily; my mouth bleeds with aborted words--useful as ink, in it, the knife does dip and marks on flesh what a voice will not.

10 May 2011

My new neighborhood being the tame, domestic corpse that it is, there isn't much by way of variables. Things seem pretty constant, and that constant is a still collection of quiet moments; the deafening absence of energy that by comparison makes ones most minute spark of excitement seem a cambrian explosion of living, raging plasma. Against this canvas of silence, every sudden deviation from normal seems supernatural. Which is why in the mornings, while walking to the train station, I sometimes am relief to see a certain young man...you may call him challenged...Retarded, is the word I really want to use but everyone is so PC and generally overly sensitive. Retarded, and yet Accelerated would better fit to describe this, either young looking man or old looking teen. His head jerks around and he looks about as if just let out for the first time. He slaps leaves on branches and runs across the street even when he has the light. There is a parking lot everyone cuts through to sneak some seconds off their morning walk to the station, there's a sharp corner that hides the coming from the going--and at this twilight, I noticed he seems to rev himself up for the stage at this isolated parenthesis. He runs, jumps, spins, dances, really lets loose. Its great to watch and I, as well as others observe, timid and jealous, wishing we were as accelerated as he.

26 April 2011

APR-27 When one googles the word "apocalypse" the first result is the Wikipedia entry for Apocalypse. According to our Wikifriends, it is, and I quote: "a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception." Ironically we live in the information age.

What happens when everything is available? When memory is more important for your electronic gadgets than your mind?When people can go on for months socializing through an online social network, and when not socializing, occasionally dropping in unseen, to catch up by viewing photos, or reading statuses. Classes on youtube, forums for any topic imaginable, downloadable PDFs, pirated books and documentaries. When instead of remembering, you simply refer to google or bing via your pc, laptop, or phone. What happens when we have all the info yet we still don't know anything.

I had forgotten that Apocalypse means Revelation. Its very easy to forget this when Apocalypse has become synonymous with the end of the world. One imagines destruction, chaos, fire and avenging angels, seven-headed serpents, and other biblical cartoons--But the truth is simple and far more powerful, it means revelation. The revealing of Truth, the revealing of The Real. Its more Catharsis than Doomsday.

I am not religious or even spiritual. I will die and I am absolutely comfortable with that being that. I belief in individuals, I belief in the universe of the individual. Each person will have their catharsis, their day of reckoning with The Truth, every individual will one day face an Apocalypse. Maybe you'll read this and fight it, scoff and laugh on the outside. But within, internally, a spark has been ignited--one, you immediately recognize, in that dark side of your brain's moon, where you hide all the things inconvenient.

For some, this cleansing is a marvelous opus of relief, however painful or overwhelming--for others, it might as well be the end of the world. For the insecure, for the weak, for the leeches and vultures, for whom confidence never dresses, for whom happiness is never independent--for these, the Truth is plague, revelation is a burning mirror that snaps off their flesh entirely in one bite. They fight the Apocalypse until they die and they still lose. They are fragments, never whole.

08 April 2011

This is a very lovely video. The focus, quite matching the reverb and color, similarly complimenting the minimalism of the track. Its the first time we've seen or heard Mr. Blake, we are somewhat pleased with the impression this video has given us.

14 March 2011

I can't wait to go home and open a bottle of burgundy, and having poured a first glass, prepare myself for a late afternoon-early evening nap. Per Daylight Savings, I have once again been privileged to waken to sunless mornings. Pre-dawn is an awful mess of a torture to have to get out of bed for, especially when you break night. Its going to be a long day.